COOKS CORNER TRAIL OPENS

New half-mile trail offers walkers pleasant woods trek;
will later include signs describing Black history in MC

by Larry Chowning –

The Middlesex County Heritage Trail grand opening was conducted Thursday, May 5, as county officials, Heritage Trail committee members and the community celebrated with a ribbon cutting.

The idea of a Heritage Trail was conceived in 2019, when there were revitalization projects planned in the Cooks Corner area near the old St. Clare Walker High School building.

The old St. Clare Walker building and grounds is today part of the Cooks Corner Office Complex, which houses the Middlesex County Public School administration, the Department of Social Services and the Middlesex Parks and Recreation program. The half-mile long walking trail is located to the east and south behind the complex in a wooded area.

During segregation, the Cooks Corner area had Black entrepreneurs who provided commercial opportunities for Blacks. The community was located between Urbanna and Saluda, all-white communities that encouraged segregation, along with most of the rest of white Middlesex.

“We do not know for sure how Cooks Corner got its name,” said Heritage Trail Committee Chairman Patricia Satterfield. “We do know that there were many Black families of Cooks who lived along Urbanna Road.”

“Middlesex has a rich history and it is a fact that the communities (white and Black) were separated by law but people did work together,” she said.

Satterfield thanked Tyler Radabaugh, who is on the heritage committee and who has done extensive research to go on the historical panels; and Dr. David Brown of the Fairfield Foundation, who was in attendance and whose organization has also helped with the project.

The new Heritage Trail is open to the public from dawn to dusk and there is no cost to the public.